Steven D'Aprano wrote: > On Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:40:03 +0200, Stefan Behnel wrote: > >>> Or you could enter the 21 century and understand that "guys" has become >>> a generic term for people of any sex. >> Is that true for everyone who understands and/or writes English? In that >> case, I'm fine with your above statement. Otherwise, I'd wonder who you >> meant with the term "cultural chauvinism". So far, I only learned that >> most North-American English native speakers use that term in the way you >> refer to. That doesn't even get you close to the majority of English >> speakers. > > If you read the entire thread, you'd see that we've already discussed the > issue of "guys" for mixed sex groups and females. In fact, as I'd already > said, I'm one of those old fashioned guys who still gets surprised when > women refer to themselves as guys, but I'm learning to keep up with the > times. I'm Australian, not North American, and the British author Michael > Quinion, one of the researchers for the Oxford Dictionary, also states > that "guys" now refers to both men and women: > > http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-guy1.htm > > When "guys" can refer to either sex in English, American, Canadian and > Australian English, I think it should be pretty uncontroversial to treat > it as standard now.
Ok, then I guess I just misread "after being adopted in the USA it started to change meaning" in one of the cited articles as "it changed meaning in the USA". I didn't expect Australians (and Oxford dictionary writers, and potentially others) to be /that/ influenced by shifts in US juvenile word semantics... I for one wouldn't start calling my leg "foot", even though the Austrians kept insisting for ages now. Stefan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
